Syria's Assad calls for national dialogue to end conflict

Outlining a reconciliation plan aimed at resolving Syria's 21-month conflict which according to the U.N. has claimed more than 60,000 lives, Assad called on foreign powers to end their support for rebels seeking to topple his regime.

“Regional and international countries must stop funding the armed men to allow those displaced to return to their homes,” Assad said to wild applause from crowds packed into the Dar al-Assad Centre for Culture and Arts in Damascus.

“Right after that our military operations will cease,” he said, adding without elaborating that a mechanism to monitor such a truce would be established.

Describing the Western-backed opposition as “slaves” of foreign powers, he admitted that Syria was in the throes of a “real war”.

The government would soon spell out details of the transition plan, he said, while stressing that any resolution must be purely Syrian and ratified by referendum, including a charter drafted at the national dialogue conference.

After the referendum, new parliamentary polls would be held, followed by the creation of a new government, said Assad.

But he stressed for all this to happen “there must be agreement at the national dialogue conference.”

“Just because we have not found a partner, it does not mean we are not interested in a political solution, but that we did not find a partner,” he told the audience.

He said the conflict was not one between the government and the opposition but between the “nation and its enemies.”

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